Davidson College - Quips and Cranks Yearbook (Davidson, NC)

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Natural Sciences. With a student-body of sixty-six members, and with three pro- fessors in its faculty, Davidson College commenced its career sixty-seven years ago, and from that day to this has never closed its doors. Even in the troublous times of the Civil War it continued its sessions, though its few students were, for the most part, boys too young to defend the cause of the South at the front. The princely donation of a quarter of a million dollars made to its endowment fund in 1855 by Maxwell Chambers, enabled the College to employ a larger and more efficient corps of instructors and to purchase a more adequate equipment for the laboratories of the Natural Science departments. Like many another of the South ' s fortunes, the endowment of Davidson College was all but swept away by the ravages of the Civil War. Since the war the institution has had to struggle against poverty, which, for a long time, threatened its very existence ; and it has been only by the noble devotion of its constituents that it has been enabled, slowly, to raise its endowment to $100,000, to expend $50,000 for laboratories, apparatus, and other improvements, and with this new equipment to carry on its work of train- ing the young men of the South for usefulness in Church and State. After a look at Davidson ' s past history, we may be justified in our desire to know in what degree she is measuring up to the high ideals of the past ; in what way she is fulfilling her mission of usefulness to the Church and to the section whose zeal for the cause of truth and enlightenment brought her into being. Probably the growing prosperity of the College cannot be better shown than by referring to the numerous improvements which have been made on its campus within the last few years. And just here, and first of all, it is proper to call attention to the work and influence of the College Y. M. C. A., whose building, the first of its kind erected on a Southern campus, contains, in addition to the assembly hall and parlor on the second floor, a gymnasium and bath rooms, which occupy the whole of the lower story. In its gymnasium a number of the students take their exercise, and its bath rooms are used by a large majority of the men in College. As a moral agency on the campus, as one of the religious factors of life at Davidson, and as a training school for Christian workers, the value and influence of the Y. M. C. A. cannot be overrated. The Association here is now in a flourishing condition, and promises to fulfill its high mission of usefulness to the work of the College. Davidson has always boasted of her beautiful campus, unsurpassed by that of any institution in the South. Only those who have had the privilege of seeing for themselves can appreciate the inadequacy of photographs and word descriptions to set forth the beauty of its wide stretches of luxuriant lawns, shaded by magnifi- cent trees, and traversed here and there by well-kept walks leading to and from the 19

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iatitbj00U OInlbg? 01 Paat, PrfHPtit anii Jfuturt I HE same hardy race which gave to the world the first Declaration of American • Independence, were not less energetic in their advancement of religion and learning than in their struggle for liberty. The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who took up their abode in the Piedmont se ction of the Carolinas twenty-five years previous to the Revolution, showed their zeal for the cause of Christ by planting in the yet untried country of their adoption numerous churches ; and their love of learning was manifested by the establishment of a number of classical academies, the influence of which extended throughout the whole of the up-country. Of these schools the most note-worthy, perhaps, were the Bingham school in Orange county; Dr. Caldwell ' s well-known school in Guilford; Queen ' s College, afterward Liberty Hall Academy, in Mecklenburg; and Zion Parnassus in Rowan. The zeal of these sturdy pioneers in establishing institutions of learning for the education of their young, has its most splendid commemoration and, as time has proved, its most enduring monument in Davidson College. The growing importance and influence of this institution furnish us a sufficient warrant for an inquiry into its earlier history. On March 12, 1835, Concord Presbytery met at Prospect Church in Rowan county, about seven miles from the present site of Davidson College, and decided to establish a manual-labor and training school. When the Presbytery next convened it was announced by the committee appointed for the purpose, consisting of Rev. Robert Hall Morrison and Rev. P. J. Sparrow, that $30,392 had been contributed by the heroic self-sacrifice and devotion of the churches under the jurisdiction of the three Presbyteries of Concord, Bethel and Morganton. In honor of Gen. William Lee Davidson, who fell at the battle of Cowan ' s Ford, the new institution was called Davidson College. Four hundred and ninety-two acres of land had been purchased between the Yadkin and Catawba rivers, and on this site the new college was opened to the youth of the South, March i, 1837, with sixty-six students in attendance. Dr. Morrison was the first President, and Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy ; Dr. Sparrow, Professor of Ancient Languages ; and Mortimer D. Johnston, of Jeflferson College, Pennsylvania, Professor of Mathematics and the

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various buildings; and only those who have spent four years under the dear old trees, have worked and dreamed in the rich atmosphere of the old College, can have learn- ed to love its campus as one of the dearest spots on earth for them. But though nature, under man ' s directing hand, has done so much to make our college home a pleasant one, it has been reserved for recent years to bring about such changes and additions in our buildings as to make them worthy of their beautiful situation. With a view to a better housing for students and equipments, by the beneficence of ex-President J. B. Shearer, the Old Chapel was remodeled in 1901 ; and from a primitive sort of structure was converted into a thoroughly convenient, modern college building, with larger and more comfortable auditorium for chapel exercises and better equipped recitation rooms. In this building is now located the new read- ing room, which is so far superior to the old one as hardly to bear comparison with it. The new room has been fitted out with the best upholstered chairs, and in other ways made much more comfortable than before. The latest magazines and papers are always to be found on the racks, and these are accessible to the students at all hours of the day. At the same time that the Old Chapel was remodeled, a time- honored eye-sore in the shape of a little dormitory building, known as Tammany, was removed from the campus, and now Elm Row and Oak Row and the two Lit- erary Society halls are the only remains of the College as it stood in 1837. Probably one of the most useful of the improvements made within recent years on our campus is the Martin Chemical Laboratory. It is a thoroughly modern structure in every d-etail, and is one of the finest laboratories of its kind in the South. It has done a great deal towards popularizing the study of Chemistry, and, by its complete equipment of materials, apparatus, etc., it has been able to give to the students a course unexcelled by any college curriculum. In an issue of the College Bulletin, issued since the Class of 1904 entered as Freshmen, it was stated that, in consequence of the growing size of the student- body, a number of improvements were in the highest degree desirable, if not abso- lutely necessary. Among other things were mentioned: larger rooms for the Phys- ical and Mineralogical laboratories, a remodeled commencement hall, an enlargement of the church, and an additional dormitory building. Before this year ' s Senior Class graduates, some of them will have profited by the increased facilities offered by the new Physical laboratories; quite a number will have enjoyed the comforts of the new dormitory building, and all of them will have shared in the advantages offered by the enlarged church. The new dormitory is thoroughly up-to-date in every detail; it is well ventilated, heated by steam, and provided with bath rooms, furnishing hot and 20